Month: January 2012

  • Why Software Development Estimation is Hard: Sea Lions, and Coastal Paths

    Among the many valid responses to the Quora question of why software development task estimations are often off by a factor of 2–3, Michael Wolfe, CEO of Pipewise, describes exactly why this is without once mentioning ‘software’ or ‘project’. Instead, Wolfe eloquently provides undoubtedly the best analogy I’ve ever heard for explaining the difficulty in…

  • Record Label Demands on Music Streaming Services

    New and potentially disruptive music streaming services are having a hard time breaking into the market, with many analysts blaming their business models and others blaming the contractual demands from labels for the troubles encountered. There are also complaints about the royalties paid to artists and poor revenues of existing services. Michael Robertson–founder of MP3Tunes and…

  • How Trends Actually Spread; or, Six Degrees but No Connectors

    The small sample size of Stanley Milgram’s small world experiment means that the theory of ‘six degrees of separation’ and the conclusion drawn from it–primarily, the Influential’s theory popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point–could be deeply flawed. That was the starting point for Duncan Watts‘ research that led him to say “the Tipping Point is…

  • Retreating to Study Technology’s Cognitive Impact

    Five neuroscientists travelled into deepest Glen Canyon, Utah, to contemplate how technology has changes their behaviour. Some were sceptics and some were believers, and by taking this forced break from their computers and gadgets (there was no mobile phone reception or power) they were determined to find out whether or not modern technology inhibits their…

  • Successful Science Article Pitches

    Article and book pitches — both successful and unsuccessful — can give you a small insight into an editor’s selection process and the sales-side of a writer’s mind, as well as help you learn to write more effectively. As such I’ve started to collect sites featuring proposals and pitches. A recent addition to this list…